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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 84 - iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT committee (ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION sub-committee)
Tuesday 11 January 2005 MS BRONWEN JONES, MS KELLY FREEMAN and MR BOB RYDER MS SUSAN LEWIS and MR GARETH WYN JONES MR PAUL ALLEN and MS ANN MCGARRY Evidence heard in Public Questions 202 - 348
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee (Environmental Education Sub-Committee) on Tuesday 11 January 2005
Members present Joan Walley, in the Chair Mr Colin Challen Mr Simon Thomas ________________ Witnesses: Ms Bronwen Jones, Head of the Sustainable Development Unit, Ms Kelly Freeman, Acting Director of Communications and Mr Bob Ryder, Deputy Head of Environment, Business and Consumers Division, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, examined. Q202 Chairman: Good afternoon. I would like to welcome you to our Select Sub-Committee this afternoon, and thank you for taking the trouble to come along. To go straight into the series of questions we have for you, one of the things that we did want to establish for the record, before we begin to discuss the detailed questions that we have for you, was to confirm that the memo we have from the DfES, to which you have contributed? Ms Jones: Yes. Q203 Chairman: In terms of Defra it stands alone as the Government's response? I want to check that you agree with all the points made in that memo because it seems, to us at least, a bit odd, your taking such an important role in this whole agenda. It is difficult for us to see how you contributed to it. We wanted to confirm that you are happy with all the points in that? Ms Jones: Yes, we did make a contribution to that and we are happy that it stands not just as a joint memorandum from the DfES and Defra, but actually I understand from DfES colleagues that it includes points made by other departments. So it is really a government-wide response submitted by DfES on our behalf. Q204 Chairman: One of the things that we wanted to look at as well, in the memo that was submitted by the DfES it said that Education for Sustainable Development is "a good description for the enterprise of making people in all sectors of education and skills 'aware of how our actions affect the people we interact with,'" and it goes on to say that, "The DfES believes that most people today would acknowledge the importance of this activity." Do you think that is right? Do you think that is a little bit over optimistic or do you think that that is where people are at or where the professionals are at? How much currency do you think it has? Ms Jones: I do not think Defra can answer for the educational sector specifically because DfES know their clients rather better than we do. But we lead on communications for SD in general, and it is our experience that professionals and practitioners understand the term Sustainable Development and, by extension, the term Education for Sustainable Development. But with the general public it has a little less resonance and the research that we have commissioned recently certainly backs that up. So, yes, it is understood by professionals and practitioners, but for wider public communications Sustainable Development and ESD are less useful terms. I do not know whether Kelly wants to add to that? Ms Freeman: I do not think so. Q205 Chairman: Mr Ryder? Mr Ryder: By extension there are parallels with other forms of communication around sustainability and I deal particularly with the theme of Sustainable Consumption and Production, which perhaps trips even less easily off the tongue. But Defra and the DTI have produced a policy framework and are building a number of frameworks around that theme. We think it is something which, again in very similar terms, can be understood by practitioners, policy makers, opinion formers, but is not at all suitable for general messages to the public, and in that case one has to segment the audience to find what kind of behaviour changes we want particular stakeholders to make and then to communicate in those terms. Q206 Chairman: Our dilemma is that if so many people are unconvinced or do not recognise the importance of this and are not, if you like, converted to understanding this, what is Defra's role in helping to make them aware? It is very difficult to see how Defra is carrying out that role. Ms Jones: To clarify, we are talking about the general public now or the education sector? Q207 Chairman: We are talking about the general public who are not convinced about the need for all of this, who are not necessarily in the education system per se, or who could be, and this split between DfES responsibility and Defra's responsibility, who is actually responsible for it? Ms Freeman: I can see where the Committee is coming from. I think for our part, with Defra, there is enough evidence that we have to suggest that people actually understand environmental issues. The greater challenge for us is getting them to focus on what behaviour change is required. We have to educate all audiences and obviously young people are very important within that, which is where we really cross specifically to the work that the Committee is reviewing today. But on the wider scale we know that we have to work harder and that is a bigger challenge for us as a department. I can either pick up now, or later on when you ask us about how we are getting the message across, to tell you about where we are and how we are going to move that on. How would you like to play that? Would you like that now or later? Q208 Chairman: It might be helpful to have a brief overview of it now and we may well come on to that in a bit. Ms Freeman: I think from where we are, we know that there are a number of national campaigns that have been run that have focused specifically on raising awareness but have not specifically translated into behaviour change, and what we have tried to do over the last year to 18 months is to step back a bit and look specifically at what are the drivers for changing behaviour. How might we better plan our communications to support that because we felt that we needed to stop and to learn some lessons. So we have commissioned some research, which has been received very well both across government and also within the wider NGO communications groups and I think that will help us to move forward. Q209 Chairman: We may go into more detail in a short while, but in terms of UK Sustainable Development Strategy and the review that is taking place there, am I right in thinking that Defra is part of the inter-departmental working group? Ms Jones: Yes, Defra is leading the review, although clearly Sustainable Development is a responsibility right across government for all departments, but we have a particular role to lead and champion it, so we are coordinating the review. The inter-departmental working group was a temporary and formal group involving Defra, DCMS and DfES, which met, I think, only twice. Q210 Chairman: Did that include then the Sustainable Development Commission or not? Ms Jones: I do not think it did although they have seen a lot of the deliberations on the Strategy Review, so if they were not formally in the meetings they were certainly involved. The group only met twice and its remit was to take the consultation responses and analyse them and generate ideas and proposals and analysis for consideration in the review of the Sustainable Development Strategy. The group has now closed because they have completed that task. Q211 Chairman: In terms of the membership of the group, were there other organisations or government bodies or agencies that you think could have been added to the debate that was going on there? Was the inter-departmental working party as comprehensive a group as it could have been? Ms Jones: It was not that nature of group. What they were doing was taking the consultation responses, which included all of the groups that you might imagine would have a view on this topic, and produce some analysis in order for us to take the work forward. So I think maybe inter-departmental working group is perhaps too grand a title and sounds a little misleading; it was simply to analyse the results of consultation because we did not want to do that purely in Defra, we wanted other departments to feel part of that as well. Q212 Chairman: With the benefit of hindsight do you think that there were others that could have been included, or was it as comprehensive a group of people as you could have got around a table? Ms Jones: Clearly there are other people who could have been involved. Q213 Chairman: Who do you think they might have been? Ms Jones: I cannot give you names off the top of my head, I am sorry. But their input had already been made, we felt, through the consultation exercise. So we had a very wide range of views already and the task was to put those into some kind of manageable summary so that departments and Ministers could make sense of them, and that was the task. Q214 Mr Thomas: Could I just ask on that, what is happening now? The inter-departmental working group may be a grandiose title, but if it has done its job and dealt with the responses to the consultation how are you taking forward the strategy now, because you are the lead obviously within Defra? Ms Jones: Yes, there are inter-departmental discussions. Q215 Mr Thomas: Is that on an ad hoc basis? It is not formalised as such? I am just trying to get a grip on how it is happening. Ms Jones: It depends what you mean by formal. Q216 Mr Thomas: Everything in government is formal, I know! Ms Jones: Okay, then it is formal. It is being taken forward at various levels. There is a group that is looking at various papers that are coming out as part of the review strategy. That includes the Sustainable Development Commission, the devolved administrations are involved, and that will soon go for ministerial clearance. Q217 Mr Thomas: So everything is coming back to one department rather than going into an inter-departmental --- Ms Jones: No, this is an inter-departmental process. Defra is leading and supporting it but other departments are involved and it will be cleared by the Ministers through Cabinet Committee. Q218 Chairman: Just returning to the Sustainable Development Strategy and the new strategy that is being drawn up at the moment, from the work that you have done so far do you think that Education for Sustainable Development is going to be playing a greater part in what comes out of the new strategy than the previous one? Ms Jones: Yes, I think it is fair to say that education has been raised by many consultation responses and it will be a major theme. Education in its broadest sense, that is, so including informal education, social learning and behaviour change. Q219 Chairman: If that is the case now why was it not the case when the previous strategy was drawn up? Ms Jones: I think anything I say on that would be speculation. I was not in this post in 1999. Q220 Chairman: Does anybody else have any view on that? Ms Jones: I think we all have views but I am not sure whether we are here to give our views or to answer for the department. Q221 Chairman: I think what we are trying to establish is the extent to which this is going to feature in a future strategy and in a way how we learn the lessons from went on previously. And if it did not feature sufficiently adequately in the previous strategy prior to the review what were the reasons? How can we learn from that? Because if we cannot learn from what has gone wrong how can we put it right in the future? Ms Freeman: One of the points that I would want to make is that we specifically commissioned the research because when Defra was created we felt that we needed to have a much better understanding of what would work in the future and how you could draw everybody together to work cohesively, and that is exactly what the Darnton research and the "carrots, sticks and sermons" research is about. It has given us information upon which to base future activity, but the whole point of it has been to learn lessons and to move on. Q222 Mr Thomas: Would it be true to say, in a nutshell, that what has happened is the strategy did not change behaviour in the way that the government would have hoped and that a very strong message coming back from the consultees on the review of the strategy has been that you are not changing behaviour, you need to rebuild and review the way that education and behaviour change is done by government? Would that not be a fair way of summarising where we have got to with this? Ms Jones: I am not sure whether that is exactly what the consultees said but the summary responses are on the website so the Committee can check that. Certainly they came back and said that education, awareness raising and behaviour change were important ways of doing this. Q223 Mr Thomas: They said behaviour was not changing in the way it has to, to achieve objectives? Ms Jones: You would be putting words into my mouth. I am not sure whether they said that in terms. Q224 Mr Thomas: I am sure somebody did! Ms Jones: I think if we looked hard enough we might be able to find that, but the overriding message was about the importance of education and behaviour change. Ms Freeman: I think for the purposes of the Committee what is important is that you recognise that we certainly feel that we are learning lessons and that we are moving forward and we are very confident in that. Q225 Chairman: Before we leave this whole area of the review, I personally got a letter from the then Secretary of State for Education back in 2003, from Charles Clarke, telling me that the DfES was working closely with Defra on the review to influence the inclusion of Education for Sustainable Development and revised indicators, because this is something that I was particularly concerned about and something that I flagged up with him. I just wonder, before we leave this, if you could confirm that that work did take place, how you fed into it from Defra and also perhaps to say to the Committee how often and with whom the issue of indicators was actually discussed? Ms Jones: I can confirm that we have been working very well and very constructively with the DfES and indeed DCMS on the aspects of education put forward in their remit, and that has been very, very useful. I cannot tell you how often indicators have been discussed between those departments. We did have two inter-departmental meetings on the indicators set. I would have to check whether DfES were able to attend those, but they were certainly invited. Q226 Chairman: We would be interested to know. Just before we leave this area, given what you have said already is there an inter-departmental structure addressing SDS across government? Ms Jones: There are many. Q227 Chairman: Is there one that is actually operative? Ms Jones: Yes, they are all operative in their own way. I would not pretend that this is ideal but the current formal structures are that there is a working level across government network called the Sustainable Development Officials Group. Q228 Chairman: At what level of civil servant? Ms Jones: It is chaired by Jill Rutter, who is my director. I am not sure I know the grades of the people attending, but I would guess they are about grade 7, if the Committee understands that. Q229 Chairman: Is there ministerial input into that? Ms Jones: No, this is an official working level group. There is a programme board which is overseeing the development of the strategy, which we hope will continue to oversee delivery of the strategy, and that is currently chaired by Brian Bender, our Permanent Secretary, and it is my hope that he will continue to chair it after the strategy is launched, although that is a matter for him. There is also the Sustainable Development Task Force, which Margaret Beckett chairs, and of course there is the Cabinet Committee end and the Green Ministers. So at various different levels there are a number of cross-departmental groups operating. Q230 Chairman: Finally, before we leave the DfES evidence that we have had to the Committee, they did list achievements that demonstrate that the process of change has actually begun, but you only really mentioned a reference to one of those, and that is the Healthy Living Blueprint. So is Defra involved any more than that or is it just one? Is that the only involvement you have? Ms Jones: Our involvement has been really at a level above that. We were consulted on the action plan and made some suggestions and we see it as our role to support DfES at that level rather than get involved hands-on in all of their individual policy initiatives, and I think that will go for most other departments as well. Q231 Chairman: What about leadership from the DfES? Is the leadership that you are experiencing from them adequate or could they do more? Ms Jones: We are very pleased with what DfES have done and set out in their action plan. Q232 Chairman: Does that suggest that your role has changed? How has your role changed since they have been taking the lead on this? Ms Jones: I think our role is the same as it is for other departments, to support, to challenge, to provide overarching policy frameworks, strategy frameworks and to pull together across government things like the UK strategy and to help provide a direction for other departments to take us forward. Q233 Chairman: Do you think if we had the same set-up as there is in Wales, where there is much more of a duty given to this, that that would change your role in all of this? Ms Jones: It undoubtedly would change the role of the Sustainable Development Unit; it would change quite a lot across government if we had statutory duty. Q234 Chairman: Would that mean more leadership is coming from within Defra on that? Ms Jones: I am speculating here on what that change would be but it seems to me that the purpose of the statutory duty would be to spread leadership and commitment right across government so that Defra would have to perhaps take less of a role, but who can say what changes that would bring about? Q235 Chairman: In respect of the Tomlinson Report, it did not seem to us that there was much of this whole agenda in the Tomlinson Report. Were you disappointed that that was the case? Ms Jones: I did not read the Tomlinson Report. Q236 Chairman: You have not read it? Ms Jones: No. Q237 Chairman: Would you not have thought that that was the one major opportunity of actually influencing Education for Sustainable Development, through the Tomlinson Report, and you have not read it? Ms Jones: It is difficult for us to know which are the key things to read right across government. Sustainable Development, as the Committee has noted, is a very, very wide subject and it is not possible for us to track every development in every department, nor do I think that that is the Sustainable Development Unit's role. We support DfES at a strategic level; we have frequent meetings with them and involve them in discussions on Sustainable Development. The SDC also has a role in supporting government departments, including DfES. I think that is how we see our role in Defra. Q238 Chairman: If I then said in reply to you that that would perhaps lead us to feel that ESD is being treated as some kind of optional extra, not just in relation to Tomlinson but the approach that that symbolises towards education, would you agree with me? Ms Jones: No, I do not think I would. As I have said, I think we see our role in supporting departments in a different way than reading particular documents. Q239 Chairman: But it is not a question of reading documents, it is reading something that is influencing departments. Ms Jones: Indeed, I agree, and perhaps with hindsight perhaps we should have read it but all I can say is that we did not so I cannot comment on that. Q240 Chairman: You are not involved in what comes out of Tomlinson in terms of the next draft that will presumably be a White Paper? Ms Jones: No, we have not been involved. I shall go back and see if we should be but at some level one has to trust departments to take things forward, taking into account what is emerging in the new SD Strategy and taking account that Sustainable Development is an across government requirement for all departments. Q241 Mr Challen: Moving on to informal learning, youth work, work based, adult and community learning, paragraph 33 of the memo that we received from DfES refers specifically to Defra and says, "Defra are developing the theme of empowerment of the community sector and voluntary sector. This will involve new training which will roll out through the Learning and Skills Council, the Community Development Foundation and Connexions, amongst others." I would like to know a bit more about this work. First of all, where this is happening, who you are working with, what are the other bodies that are involved in this work and how developed is it? Ms Jones: I am pleased to have the opportunity to clarify for the Committee that the work that is set out in paragraph 33 is still under consideration as part of our approach under the new Sustainable Development Strategy, so I apologise if that did not come out clearly in paragraph 33. What we are looking at here is working to educate through community activity, or to change behaviour through community activity, better and more effectively than is being done at present. We are in discussion with a number of voluntary sector and NGO groups but we are also working very closely and very constructively with the Home Office to link this up with their general community engagement programme. Q242 Mr Challen: So you are talking directly with some of the groups that I have already referred to and are referred to in paragraph 33, for example the Learning and Skills Council? Ms Jones: Yes. Q243 Mr Challen: You speak to them at a national level or at a regional level? Ms Jones: National level, I believe. Q244 Mr Challen: Is DfES involved in those discussions? Do they in any way mediate with them or set the parameters on how far they can go? Ms Jones: I am not sure I can answer that because it is one of my team that takes this work forward, so I cannot answer for how those meetings go exactly. Q245 Mr Challen: Do you have an assessment of how much this kind of work is going to cost or is that still under consideration? Ms Jones: It is still under consideration but it should not be extremely expensive because what we are talking about if this comes to pass is really capacity building, so providing tool kits, providing training materials and developing those. Q246 Mr Challen: Can you give me an example of capacity building? Ms Jones: For example, there are a lot of people who are already working in the communities and working with voluntary groups. It is not clear that they have sufficient access to materials that will help them understand Sustainable Development better and how they can embed Sustainable Development in what they are already doing with their local community groups. So if that need exists that will be an area where we can be in partnership with voluntary organisations and community organisations and draw up some material that will help those who are already active to embed Sustainable Development more in what they are doing. Q247 Mr Challen: Will this process be driven entirely by Defra or will you have joint funding with DfES on some of these initiatives? Ms Jones: That is still to be decided but I am very keen that this is not just driven by Defra, that it is actually across government and that it operates in partnerships with organisations who are much closer to voluntary community work than Defra is. Q248 Mr Challen: Are you involved in any of the other initiatives in this section of the memo from DfES and, if so, what is your involvement? Ms Jones: Those are the Corporate Social Responsibility Academy, which is a DTI issue, Sector Skills Development Agency in DTI, and we have been involved with Lottery Fund discussions. Q249 Chairman: In terms of the Lottery discussions and in terms of issues like, for example, sustainable timber and approaches towards those making applications, does that come into your educational aspects of this? Ms Jones: I am sorry; I am not clear what the connection is with timber? Q250 Chairman: It has been one of the issues that our Committee has looked at in the past, that, for example, Lottery bids do not specify a requirement for legally sustained timber. Ms Jones: Okay. I think I would have required notice of that question; it is quite a detailed one. Would you like me to get back to the Committee on that? Chairman: I would be interested, yes. Q251 Mr Challen: And a bit more detail on some of these areas where you are working or where things are under consideration at least, following on from that paragraph 33. Ms Jones: So just on the ones under 33, some more detail? Q252 Mr Challen: I would find that very useful. Ms Jones: Okay. Q253 Mr Thomas: While we are on that, could I go back to the community initiatives that you talked about, of consultation with the Community Development Foundation and Home Office type initiatives? Could it not be seen as one of the failures to embed Sustainable Development across the government departments that you are taking an initiative in an area where we would have hoped by now, perhaps, that that particular department would already have embedded Sustainable Development in its own work with these organisations? Do you sometimes feel frustrated that it is not just the general public but that government departments who have not yet woken up to the possibility of added Sustainable Development, embedded Sustainable Development into their own activities with the public? Ms Jones: That is exactly what we are doing. The Home Office have been extremely constructive in taking this forward. Q254 Mr Thomas: But you are taking it forward. Ms Jones: No, we are talking it forward jointly. Q255 Mr Thomas: You took the initiative, or the Home Office? Ms Jones: To be honest I cannot recall, but it is absolutely a joint enterprise. Q256 Mr Thomas: I am interested to see where the leadership is coming from because from what we have had so far in these sessions it seems that there is a potential difficulty emerging between Defra's overarching leadership role on Sustainable Development and the individual leadership role that the DfES has on Education for Sustainable Development, particularly when you get into the informal sector. Where does education end and public awareness begin and changing public perception and public attitudes? It is a much more holistic process. And that there may be the danger of things falling through the cracks because of a slightly shared responsibility. Ms Freeman: Can I put an alternative view based on experience? Actually things are really improving in that respect. I can see why you would think that that could be the case but actually there is a lot of work obviously going on within our department and also in the way in which we interact across Whitehall leading into different strategies. Perhaps we are not good enough yet at making it visible but it is happening and it is very good. So I can see where you are coming from but possibly we are just not making it visible enough. Mr Challen: It follows on from that point, it is about communications to a certain extent, and the Global Action Plan told us that Defra as an organisation does not have a strategic approach to communication, to the extent that its agencies "operate fairly freely" and they use types of media campaigns, such as the WRAP Recycle Now campaign, which have been discredited by its own research - I think that is referring to Global Action Plan's own research. Would you say that that is a fair assessment of Defra? Chairman: Can I just come in? I think it is actually referring to Defra's research. Q257 Mr Challen: Is it? Perhaps you both researched it and came to the same conclusion? Ms Freeman: I think to be honest that it is difficult for me to comment on WRAP's particular activity, but what I will say is that pretty much what I said before, that we have taken the opportunity to step back and to build a strategic approach, that is exactly what we are doing through the research that we have undertaken. I think a lot of the agencies that we fund do some very good work; they are focusing on specific audiences. What we are now looking at is really focusing on moving into behaviour change and that is the research that we have commissioned and that has been welcomed by people like the Energy Savings Trust and the Carbon Trust because it is actually challenging a lot of existing thinking. Q258 Mr Challen: If we take a couple of examples. Yesterday we had a second reading of the Defra sponsored Clean Neighbourhoods Bill; what kind of approach will you be taking to that in communicating it, assuming of course it gets on to the statute book? Secondly, given that the Prime Minister this year is chairing the G8, I believe that the government is proposing some kind of public campaign and can you tell us anything about that? Ms Freeman: It is difficult to comment at the moment because it is all being discussed with Ministers, but what I can say is that we will be taking the principles of the research that have been widely agreed both within the public and private sector as being the way forward, and using that as a basis for planning future communication activity. Q259 Chairman: In relation to the Bill yesterday though, that had its second reading? Ms Freeman: It is very difficult to comment at this stage, obviously, but in principle we will be taking the research and using it as a basis for communications activity. Q260 Mr Challen: That is for climate change, and you are referring there to the Defra sponsored conference that is taking place next month. Ms Freeman: I am really talking about the overall approach that we want to take to communication, which includes all of our strategic priority areas. It is difficult for me to comment specifically on a Bill that has not yet been through the House, but in principle that is how we will be approaching future communications. Q261 Mr Challen: I am not really quite so sure that I understand the answer. This Bill, for example, coming from Defra, even if for some reason, heaven forbid, it did not get Royal Assent, surely these are problems that exist anyway, which Defra must have some kind of corporate strategy of dealing with, on which the Bill clearly is a part, but is there no plan B? Ms Freeman: Let us not exclude existing work because we do already fund ENCAMS. We run campaigns that are dealing specifically with antisocial behaviour, so there is a lot of activity that is happening currently, and what I am saying is that the research that we have commissioned, that is enabling us to take a more strategic approach to planning of communications, will be used to plan future activity. I cannot comment specifically on a Bill that has not been through the House, but in principle we will be taking that research and using it. Q262 Mr Challen: So when was that research commissioned and when do you expect to hear the results and the conclusions on that research? Ms Freeman: Sorry, I am confusing you, obviously. We have two pieces of research that area already in the public domain. We have a piece of research called "carrots, sticks and sermons", which we commissioned through Demos Green Alliance and we have another piece of research which was commissioned through the COI and undertaken by Andrew Darnton, which is also in the public domain, and both of them have looked very specifically at behaviour change campaigns and what are the components that are likely to make behaviour change campaigns work in the future, and it is those principles that we will be applying to all of our future communications activities. Q263 Mr Challen: So both of these research documents are now available? Ms Freeman: Yes, they are. Q264 Mr Challen: I have a dim memory of one of them from a previous inquiry. Ms Freeman: We can provide you with links obviously. Ms Jones: Could I add that there is a third document, which is the Tim Jackson research, which we sponsored through the Sustainable Development Research network? Q265 Mr Challen: Am I right in thinking that you are still mulling over the conclusions of this research, or has it now been put into practice and people are being given instructions about how to go about it and budgets have been set? Ms Freeman: Forgive me, it is complicated. We have taken the findings; we have used it to inform a piece of work that a company called Ketera have taken forward on climate change. We are using climate change as the first example, if you like, of using this research and those proposals have gone to Ministers, so I cannot comment on that at the moment. But our intention is to use that as a case study and then to plan all of our communications in the future. Not just Defra but also the wider NGO community is also buying into this piece of research. It is complicated, I know that. Q266 Mr Challen: It sounds it. Ms Freeman: But we do know what we are doing! Q267 Mr Challen: Can we quickly turn to the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, which does seem to be facing quite a problem for those groups that were receiving monies from it, and I refer to Global Action Plan again - their evidence was very convincing. They referred to scrabbling around to try to find alternative streams of funding for initiatives and projects which have a proven track record of success. They asserted that the government's response to this was, "a fantastic game of pass the parcel. The fact that DfES have taken a lead on this particular issue has been a greater opportunity for Defra" - mixing metaphors here - "to throw the ball to them and say, 'You run with it.'" What is your response to that? Mr Ryder: Specifically on the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme it is the case that there have been changes to the regime that applied two or three years ago and there was quite a diverse set of projects, some of which were combined with match funding from the Environmental Action Fund, for example, which no longer qualify, and Ministers decided that the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme should be applied more strategically to the meeting of landfill targets, and so there were some reforms to that fund which came into effect from March or April 2003. The thrust of effort then was directed through the waste implementation programme, working through local authorities, specifically on reducing flows to landfill. That has not ended the involvement with voluntary community sector activity. In the Autumn just gone further funding was announced for the voluntary sector in a package of around £4 million, £3 million of which is a challenge fund for voluntary sector groups to come forward with the projects on waste, whether it should be recycling, reuse or composting, and there is an application process in full swing now. The first round of expression of interest has just closed and voluntary groups can compete for funding from this new source. It is called the Community Sector Support Programme. Q268 Chairman: How did you communicate that? Mr Ryder: Obviously it was announced by Ministers but also communicated to the kind of organisations which have been involved hitherto in the Landfill Tax Credit scheme in its earlier incarnation. Q269 Mr Challen: What percentage of funding does that represent of the previous amount that was available? Mr Ryder: I would have to let you have a note on that. Q270 Mr Challen: Would it be fair to say that it is quite a bit less? Mr Ryder: I cannot say, I am afraid. Q271 Chairman: Is education one of the criteria for that funding? Mr Ryder: Not specifically but awareness and understanding of issues is a component of the criteria. Q272 Chairman: So all the evidence that we have received from groups who previously received funding to help with educational initiatives of one kind or another related to this, would they have met the criteria? Would they have been communicated through the usual channels about eligibility for this £5 million fund? Mr Ryder: I cannot tell you in detail about how the existence of the fund and the criteria were communicated, but we can give you more details on that. It certainly is the case that awareness and understanding components within projects were certainly envisaged in the criteria being proposed. Q273 Chairman: But education is not one of the criteria? Mr Ryder: As I understand it, not specifically. Q274 Mr Challen: Would it be fair to conclude this session by saying that the funding crisis here is another example really of how Education for Sustainable Development, when pitched against sports or citizenship, education is very much a Cinderella and is not a priority at all? Mr Ryder: I can only really answer for the funding streams that Defra itself is making available, which can play some part in this picture. I mentioned the Environmental Action Fund as one which has supported educational related projects in the past, and will continue to support projects which help to raise awareness and understanding that will also lead to behaviour change. I think another important point is that the programmes I have referred to there are relatively small and quite specific; other programmes, which are much larger, which deal with specific impacts on climate change or energy and waste, all of those contain an element of awareness raising and the spreading of understanding, not through formal education but through different types of campaign and of partnership with different agencies and voluntary groups. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. In respect of that final series of questions, any information you have about the amount of money that was going on education projects previously compared to the percentage that is going on them now would be very helpful for us to have, if you are able to provide that information. Thank you very much for your evidence today.
Memorandum submitted by Estyn Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Ms Susan Lewis, Chief Inspector of Education and Training and Mr Gareth Wyn Jones, HM Inspector of Education and Training, examined. Q275 Chairman: Good afternoon Ms Lewis and Mr Jones. Can I extend a warm welcome to you and thank you for taking the trouble to come along. We were particularly keen to have some evidence from Wales and to have some comparable approach towards our current sub-committee. Ms Lewis: We are very pleased to be asked. Q276 Chairman: Before I ask Mr Thomas if he would like to kick off with our questions, if there is anything that you would like to flag up with the sub-committee because I think clearly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education and Training in Wales has a slightly different perspective than some of the agencies and bodies in the rest of the UK? Ms Lewis: Would it be helpful if I gave a quick overview of who we are and what we do? Q277 Chairman: Just very briefly, thank you. Ms Lewis: I will be very quick. We are a body independent of but funded by the National Assembly for Wales and we inspect virtually everything that there is to inspect in education and training - it is almost easier to tell you which bits we do not inspect. We do not inspect higher education other than teacher training, but everything else from nursery education through to adult and community education, taking in various things like youth offending teams, which we do in conjunction with other inspectorates along the way. We virtually inspect everything there is. As an inspectorate you have this dual responsibility to take on some of the issues that you are inspecting others over in your own organisation and the running of your own organisation, and in Wales, as you know, Sustainable Development, along with three other big aspects of work, are statutory duties of the Assembly to ensure that things that they do are informed by sustainability. As a body funded by the Assembly we take that quite seriously. So there are two strands to our work, which we can probably help you with, and that is the work that we do outwards facing and perhaps some of the things that we do as an organisation. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Mr Thomas. Q278 Mr Thomas: Let us start with what you do with the community at large in Wales. As you have just restated, and from your evidence as well, of course, there is the statutory duty to promote Sustainable Development, which makes your work materially different to that in England. Could you say a little more about how that has developed both the Curriculum in Wales as a formal aspect, but also the informal aspect of learning, which you also mentioned in your introduction? Ms Lewis: In 2001 we reviewed all of our inspection arrangements across the board. We gained a lot of work throughout the late 90s done to various frameworks and so on, and we reviewed all our work and we now do it to a common inspection framework. Sustainable Development is one strand of one of the key questions that we ask of any place that we are inspecting in our inspection work. So we very much place that centrally in our work and we find, as I am sure you understand, that if we inspect it it tends to get done more than if we do not inspect it in terms of things in education and training. So I think the fact that we inspect Sustainable Development and sustainability and what organisations are doing on those issues tends to get them more attention. In addition to our statutory inspection work we provide advice to the National Assembly for Wales and particularly to the Welsh Assembly Government on anything it would like to ask us in a remit that is issued annually. So as part of that remit we might find ourselves sitting on various steering groups or working parties and so on, and my colleague, Gareth Wyn Jones, has quite an operational involvement in some of those things as a geographer to do with sustainability. So those are the broad strands of our work. Q279 Mr Thomas: As part of the wider inspection throughout the United Kingdom, I wonder if you could give us an idea of how different that is to what happens particularly in England, where there is not this statutory duty? We heard from the Defra officials earlier that if there was a statutory duty it would change their task quite considerably. Are you able to compare and contrast in that way? Ms Lewis: To some extent I would think that it is easier for us in Wales because there is a statutory duty. It can also have its difficulties as well because the framework that we use to inspect against can get very packed with things that are statutory duties, requirements and so on. But I certainly think it helps. It helps to raise awareness; it helps us as an inspectorate to make sure that we have trained our inspectors in various areas that they need to be familiar with. For instance, I have something here. These are notes that we send out. If I could just say, as an aside, that we have a similar system for inspection to Ofsted in that our school inspections are all contracted out. All other aspects of our inspection work are done by HMI staff in Estyn. But we produce these inspection matters for the wider inspectorate, that is of the order of 700 inspectors across Wales who can at any one time be working for us. So we inform them and we make sure that they are up to date on issues and this one, that has gone out this month, does have a section in it on guidance on Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship. Q280 Mr Thomas: Is that a fairly new thing? Ms Lewis: The inspection matter is not; the fact that that is in there is a recap, an update really rather than fresh guidance. Mr Jones: Can I just add that there has been guidance on Sustainable Development in previous guidance to independent inspectors as well. So, as the Chief Inspector said, it is there. Ms Lewis: Our staff conference last year was on Sustainable Development so the whole of the staff had an opportunity to consider how this could impact on work in their areas, and included in that self-sustainability by having health checks available and things like that. So we look for opportunities to bring that in. I think, from my knowledge of other inspectorates - and I do meet regularly with the three other education and training inspectorates in the UK, and I chaired the wider group of Chief Inspectors across all of the inspectorates - we probably do more on this issue because it is a statutory requirement. Q281 Mr Thomas: One specific question on that. You mentioned earlier that Sustainable Development was a key question, which you use when you approach institutions when you inspect. Ms Lewis: Part of the key question. Q282 Mr Thomas: Okay. Is that the same as is done in the other countries in the United Kingdom? Ms Lewis: I do not think it is. I could not answer that definitively, but I do not think so. Q283 Mr Thomas: You think that is probably unique? Ms Lewis: I think so. Mr Jones: I am not quite sure, but I think it reflects the legislative framework that we are working under. Q284 Mr Thomas: Can I turn to another part of the evidence, which is the Common Inspection Framework. Presumably this is a framework which includes those key questions, one of which is about Sustainable Development? Ms Lewis: Yes. Q285 Mr Thomas: Could you say what the process was by which Sustainable Development is incorporated in that framework and how that framework is then used in an inspection to ensure that the organisations are meeting that constitutional demand, if you like? Ms Lewis: If I start off the answer and Gareth will probably come in because he uses this day in day out in his work. As I said, three years ago we consulted with all of our stakeholders in Wales about the new inspection arrangements which would be in place from September 2004. We went out to consult on a number of proposals, all of which received very strong support, and for the last three years we have been developing the detail of that framework and the detail of guidance that sits behind that for each of the separate sectors. It was actually Gareth's partner in geography, as it were, in Estyn, who was the project manager for that development of the Common Inspection Framework, so he would be very keen to see that there. Equally, we would look at all the strategic requirements on us as an organisation to make sure that they were embedded in what we inspect and how we inspect. So that is the overview of that. Gareth, do you have anything to add? Mr Jones: When we are out on an inspection, as well as the Common Inspection Framework there are additional forms that are produced for inspectors to complete, in terms of classroom observation and to evaluate any work that they see. As well as that there are other forms where they can comment on aspects to do with management and organisation as well, and within those forms there is quite a clear prompt about Sustainable Development. As far as the inspection of further education colleges are concerned, which is the area that I have been most directly involved in in recent years, we have a system as well of formal inspections that come at regular intervals, of general inspector visits to colleges. They are usually one day visits and one of the aspects that we look at - and there is a specific aide memoir designed for it - is Sustainable Development. So it has quite a high profile. Q286 Mr Thomas: Does this framework mean that literally from the nursery school to the further education college part of your inspectorate is going to ask about Sustainable Development? Ms Lewis: Yes. Mr Jones: And teacher training colleges as well. Ms Lewis: Every single aspect is now inspected against this Common Inspection Framework. So the same seven questions are asked wherever we go and whatever type of inspection it is, whether it is a short, a standard or a full inspection - those seven questions are all asked to varying degrees of detail. Q287 Mr Thomas: Yes, that is appropriate, but as it is fairly new you do not have any evidence about how this is working as yet, I presume? Ms Lewis: We did a bit of a trawl before we came here to see what sort of grades were coming out in the places that we have inspected since September. It is a five-point scale - four and five are not good news - and all of the grades, bar one, were one, two or three. So there is progress being made. Broadly speaking, two to three-ish would be what most institutions were getting for the question that contains that strand. Q288 Mr Thomas: Can I ask a little more about how this all fitted into the Assemblies - the statutory requirement and the Assembly Government's objective as well - because you referred in evidence to the Advisory Panel for Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship, because the two are taken together in Wales, and that you have a representative on the Panel. Could you just say a little more about the Panel, who is on it, who your representative is, how often it meets? Mr Jones: The Panel has been going for three or four years - I am not quite sure of the date - and initially there were two separate Panels, a Sustainable Development Panel and a Global Citizenship Panel, and they answered to different officers within the National Assembly. I think that there was a growing awareness that that was a duplication so they decided to combine them. The group is quite a widely representative group. You have members from the RSPB, ACCAC, which is the Qualifications Body for Wales, Estyn, Eco-schools, Cyfanfyd, ELWa, Forum, a representative from higher education, a representative from initial teacher training, the Countryside Commission for Wales, a representative the LEA, British Council, DfID, Welsh Assembly Government, Welsh Local Government Association and the Welsh Youth Forum. So it is a very large group. Q289 Mr Thomas: Did you mention the faith group there? Mr Jones: Yes, Cyfanfyd, and they were initially part of the Global Citizenship Group, and what has happened is that there has been an amalgamation. They meet term-ly for the most part and it has been quite an active group over the years and part of their work has been involved in advising and producing a book for use by schools in Wales on Global Citizenship and Sustainable Development. That is another way in which the system in Wales is slightly different because ACCAC, which is the Curriculum Authority, as you probably know, as you are from Wales, has the responsibility for qualifications but also to try to ensure that there are resources available, particularly Welsh media resources, but also English media resources if a need is identified, and this was one of the books that was produced as a result of the work of this Panel, and what it does is to give quite a wide-ranging list of case studies that exemplify. What it does is give quite a wide ranging list of case studies that exemplify good practice across the whole sphere of education in Wales and it has been quite well received by schools. Q290 Mr Thomas: One of the interesting things is you have produced a book rather than a website. Mr Jones: Yes. That was something that was mentioned about three or four years ago. I am not quite sure why the website has not been established. I suspect that it is in the pipeline somewhere because I think the group has been quite active. Q291 Mr Thomas: Has it produced anything else apart from the book? Mr Jones: The other aspect to this panel is that they have been given some funding by the Assembly Government and they have awarded funds for specific projects in initial teacher training and they have provided some money for Bangor University, for Pembrokeshire, for Cyfanfyd. Q292 Mr Thomas: These are education projects? Mr Jones: They are education projects. One of the criteria for the projects is that the project that they submit for consideration for funding has in some way to fit into the Welsh Assembly Government Sustainable Development Action Plan so there is a link between what happens on the ground and the overall strategy. The other aspect of this project funding is that there is a requirement that the people who have been awarded this funding are asked to produce a self-assessment of their progress and to identify the impact that the project has had on the community that it serves. Mr Thomas: Thank you. Q293 Chairman: Just before we leave this series of questions, I understand that as far as England is concerned at least there is the head teachers' standard that has been developed by the National College for School Leadership which makes no mention of sustainable development. I wonder if there is anything in Wales which would be an equivalent standard which would include sustainable development. Ms Lewis: There is something equivalent in Wales but I would have to come back to you as to whether there is anything central in there about sustainability. Chairman: I think it would be helpful if there were because we are looking at Tomlinson and we are looking at what is going to follow and these standards are being drawn up with no reference. It would be helpful to know if there is best practice comparable elsewhere. Q294 Mr Challen: In your evidence it seems that there have been a lot of successful initiatives to get schools involved with education on sustainable development and that has led to a lot of Eco-school status being awarded and yet the Welsh Consumer Council reported that seven out of ten people do not even know what sustainable development is. I do not know how that compares with the rest of the UK, it might be better, it could be worse. What is your view about that? Why do you think that the general public is not so aware, and in particular what do you think has made schools in formal education more successful? Ms Lewis: I think that in terms of what schools are doing, and we were talking about this on the way up in the train, is as the learner gets older there seems to be less engagement with this as an issue rather than more. Maybe when the younger people have worked through the system it will develop. I suppose the other way of saying it is that at least 30 per cent did know and perhaps if we had done this survey a few years ago it might have been even worse. The term may not be something that is understood by people but I think the issues are more and more understood, or at least known about, maybe understood is going too far. Certainly recognising the issues is better in general than it used to be. Q295 Mr Challen: Also, I notice from your memorandum that you perhaps have the same problem that this Committee often faces and that is do we call it environmental education or is it all about sustainable development, which is sometimes a very much wider concept. Do you think that these are purely interchangeable or do they represent quite different things? Mr Jones: They do represent different things quite obviously. When one talks about the environment one has a distinct perception of what one is talking about. They do interlink quite strongly as well and I think they interlink quite strongly with global citizenship, which is the additional dimension in Wales. The events of last week reflect that you cannot actually detach an environmental catastrophe from the consequences of that on the people who live in a particular community and the effect that such a climactic occurrence has on people. That is where the sustainability element comes in. Q296 Mr Challen: So in that regard, in terms of global citizenship, you believe that personal responsibility should be stressed, it is not simply something that we are passive victims of or perpetrators of, as it were? Mr Jones: Yes, and that is evidenced in our inspections really, that the most effective form of activity involved in this area in schools is that which focuses on the local area but which also draws strands from it to identify the effect it can have on communities within Wales or wider afield. Q297 Mr Challen: In England it seems that DfES is proposing different evaluation tools for ESD and citizenship. Do you think that is very helpful? Mr Jones: I do not think it would be right for me to comment on the system in England. Q298 Mr Challen: Or to have them as separate things? Mr Jones: That is an issue for the system in England. Q299 Mr Thomas: Bringing them together has worked in Wales. Mr Jones: Most certainly it has. That is the message that has come through really. It identifies the link between environment and people and you cannot detach them really. It also links the scales, that you cannot detach things that happen in South East Asia from our lives, particularly with the advent of ease of travel from here to South East Asia, for example, and it brings it home to people in this country very, very clearly. Ms Lewis: I think there is a strong link between environment, economy and society, those sorts of issues, and that you cannot expect people to behave in relation to one without considering their circumstances in relation to the other two. These things are notoriously difficult to change people's behaviour over. As a former health education teacher as part of my teaching career, health education messages can go out and people can understand them at the level of recounting them to you but then children go off and eat chips for lunch every day. It is actually changing people's behaviour because they understand that it might have an impact on them or their families or the wider community in which they live. I think you do that by involving them more and more. Sustainability has got to do with leadership and the development of leadership and the development of consultation and the development of people's expectation to be consulted about issues as well. Q300 Chairman: On that theme of doing as I do rather than doing as I say and actually linking vision with action, I am just interested because many of us are following the pilot post-16 Welsh Baccalaureate initiative that is taking place and I think in your memorandum to us you mentioned some of the benefits that there have been for ESD in Wales from that. I would be interested to hear a little bit more about that and what evidence you have got to show that it is making a difference. Mr Jones: We have got the WJEC handbook here on the Welsh Baccalaureate and we would be quite happy to leave that if that would be of assistance to the Committee. Q301 Chairman: Thank you very much. I am sorry that Defra are not here to share it with us although I am sure they will have an opportunity. Mr Jones: The Welsh Baccalaureate is in the pilot stage. It is in the second year of a three year project. One of the components of it is Wales, Europe and the world and one of the areas where education for sustainable development is perhaps different from other parts of the UK is in the focus on heritage and cultural perspectives. Our evidence at this stage in our evaluation of the Baccalaureate identifies things that are going well and things that are not going so well, as one would expect in a pilot project, and I suspect that the WJEC will come to the same conclusion. In our evidence, some of the units that we have seen on heritage and cultural perspectives have been quite successful. There have been three cases in point that come to mind. One was of a college in north east Wales that receives nearly 50 per cent or more of its students from over the border and there was an exercise there where they used poetry to inform youngsters of the challenges that other youngsters living in rural parts of Wales have to get work and to live in their own communities. That particular session was very successful in informing and letting these young people know about the conditions of life for people in other parts of Wales. On the other side of the coin, in north west Wales there was another college where they invited a local councillor in to talk about the political process as part of citizenship. In that particular session this local politician, who was a Plaid Cymru politician actually, gave a very useful insight into the political process and asked the young people what was the issue that affected them most and the same issue came up but from a slightly different perspective: they wanted to stay in north west Wales, living in a Welsh speaking community and gaining work there but they could not afford housing. The politician took them through the political process as to how they could inform and influence local politicians and how they could bring about policies to try to change people's perspectives of that particular issue. The third example was of a school, again in north Wales, where one of my colleagues interviewed a group of sixth formers who were on the Welsh Baccalaureate course. There were four of them in this particular discussion and he asked them about some issues to do with world events and he was quite struck by the fact that these young people had a great depth of knowledge and far more confidence in talking about and discussing these particular events than other students that he had interviewed who were not on the Welsh Baccalaureate course. If you like, those are small examples of the effect of it as a positive influence. Q302 Chairman: Are you doing any evaluation or monitoring? Mr Jones: Yes. We monitor the Baccalaureate as part of our ongoing inspection process and we meet with officials from the Assembly Government terminally. Q303 Chairman: Just coming back to the children themselves, how much are you finding that they are enthusiastic when it comes to lessons on ESD and global citizenship? Ms Lewis: Generally speaking, I think they do welcome the opportunity to talk about and share their concerns, their understanding and their fears about certain things and to be better informed. There are some very good case studies in that document that my colleague referred to before and, short of sounding a bit like a travelling salesman, we have brought quite a number of documents with us which we are very happy to leave. Mr Thomas: You do not want to take them back on the train! Q304 Chairman: We wanted to get a feel for comparable best practice, that was the purpose of inviting you. Ms Lewis: There are some very good studies in there across primary and secondary schools. Q305 Chairman: That would be helpful. Mr Jones: When children visit centres, like the Centre for Alternative Technology, and when they have an opportunity of attending residential courses to do some work in that environment they come back motivated and enthused, they have enjoyed the experience, and very often that has a positive spin-off effect on other aspects of the curriculum. Ms Lewis: If I could just add one point there. The whole of education development in Wales is going along according to a ten year strategy, a paving document this is called, The Learning Country, and there are developments at foundation phase for three to seven year-olds, the 14-19 learning pathways, and the Welsh Baccalaureate. There are threads of sustainability and education for sustainable development throughout each of those things. It is very much taking the strategy through the practical working out of examples. Q306 Chairman: How early does that start? Ms Lewis: Three. Q307 Chairman: In terms of funding for the trips to Machynlleth or wherever, we have identified a serious lack of funding. Mr Jones: Local authorities can bid for money from the Assembly Government under the Better Schools Fund and one element of that has ESD and global citizenship as part of it, and last year 6.5 million was allocated nationally and it has something like 6.5 million allocated for the coming year. The take-up varies from authority to authority. Some authorities, like Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire and Gwynedd, are particularly active in this field. Q308 Mr Thomas: Just to conclude by looking at the more informal learning sector, because we have concentrated a lot on curriculum and schools and so forth, in your evidence you mention good examples from Young People's Partnerships, but it is not only about young people in formal learning, it goes through life, and you refer to Young Farmers' Clubs, the Mentrau Iaith, which is the local Welsh language initiatives and so forth. Could you say a little bit more about that? I know you would not want to comment on what happens in England but we heard evidence earlier about where Defra was on this aspect. I wonder if you could try and at least compare and contrast, or in Scotland or wherever, where similar things are happening in the informal sector. How can you evaluate that? In what way are you able to show that the funding going into that sector for education on sustainable development is having an impact in terms of people's attitudes and a change in behaviour? Ms Lewis: I think as far as youth service work is concerned we see some very good examples, but equally we see some examples where there is room for considerable improvement. We would highlight the training of youth workers as an area where they do need more help in this area, and probably the same in adult and community education. Our work in the voluntary sector is only just beginning to get underway, so we have some anecdotal evidence that we pick up when we are looking at broader aspects of work and we have referred to one or two of them in relation to young farmers in our paper and so on. I think the work-based training as a sector - I would not call it an informal sector but certainly a sector in which we would like to see far more being done in this regard - is one of our poorest performing sectors in a whole range of areas and sustainability would be one of those. Q309 Mr Thomas: Who is responsible for delivering education for sustainable development in the informal sector in Wales? Is it completely yourselves or do you share that responsibility with others? How is it done? Ms Lewis: It is not our responsibility to see that it happens but it is our responsibility through reporting on it to say what it is like if it is there, and if it is not there to comment on it. Q310 Mr Thomas: Whose responsibility is it? Ms Lewis: I suppose it is a strategic direction through the statutory duty and we play a key part in monitoring that, but then it would be down to the funding organisations when we highlight the shortcomings. For instance, if it is ELWa funded training or education then the responsibility would be with ELWa and if it was local authority based the responsibility would be there. Q311 Mr Thomas: When you say it is early days in terms of involvement in that sector, you are responsible for seeing how that sector works. Ms Lewis: Yes. Q312 Mr Thomas: So are you able to say whether those other organisations, such as ELWa, have succeeded in the past or do you think that generally we need to be bringing people up to a higher standard? Ms Lewis: I think it is work in progress and there is more to be done on that score. I report on all those things annually in my Chief Inspector's Report, which is due out at the end of this month, and sustainability gets a section in there as well. Chairman: Thank you for taking the trouble to appear before us this afternoon and for the literature that you have brought with you, we will give it due consideration. Best wishes with your work. Thank you. Memorandum submitted by Centre for Alternative Technology Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Paul Allen, Development Director, and Ms Ann McGarry, Education Officer, Centre for Alternative Technology, examined. Q313 Chairman: Good afternoon. Welcome, Mr Allen and Ms McGarry. I think you have sat in and heard some of our previous witnesses. I have to say at the very outset that we would have loved to have come and visit the Centre for Alternative Technology as part of our evidence gathering inquiry but we were just unable to fit it in at this stage, nonetheless we hope there will be an opportunity to come and visit in the future. Meanwhile, we do appreciate your taking the time and trouble to travel all this way to give evidence to us this afternoon. Before I ask Mr Challen to start, is there anything that you would like to say for the record in terms of what you see as the cutting edge as far as this whole theme of education for sustainable development is concerned and how that fits in with your whole set-up? Mr Allen: I would say that generally my experience and expertise is more in the general public sector and Ann's is more in the formal schools and education sector, so we may answer separately. I think the most important thing is within sustainability, and I prefer "sustainability" to "sustainable development" but I think it is important to keep the continuity of the message so the public does not say "Oh, it is called something else now" because then we lose where we have got to so far, but sustainability does allow for the fact that it may be more sustainable to leave things alone sometimes rather than to develop them. There is a whole range of issues, some are environmental, some are social, some are economic, but within that there are some issues which are absolutely desperately urgent and there are some issues that if we tackled them in 15, 20 or even 50 years' time that would be good enough. I think it is very important that we pull out of sustainability the things that are cryingly urgent. One of the criteria I would use to select those things is whether they show signs of beginning to run away of their own accord, which is one of the reasons why I would put climate change at the top because the evidence is coming out now that if we continue to behave as we are then climate change may start to run away with itself, and even if we all switched everything off and sat quietly it would not stop. There is a need to tackle everything and make sure it is an inclusive term but to offer some prioritisation of resources and guidance to the public about what things should be tackled first because it is very easy for a company to have a sustainable office policy and to recycle all the paperclips while the actual carbon footprint of that company is escalating enormously. We must not been seen as tinkering around the edges. Ms McGarry: The other issue that is urgent in that sense, and it is not new that it is urgent, is that it is intolerable that we do not deal with global poverty. Those are the two key things that we always need to bear in mind: is this going to make a difference to climate change and is it going to make a difference to global poverty? Q314 Chairman: If I understand you right, you are talking about having a short, medium and long-term approach as well and sorting out within that what needs to be dealt with in the short-term and addressed in the medium and long-term, so the timing is a factor in all of this, there is no synchronisation of it. Mr Allen: The parallel I would draw is the wonderful people who arrive at road traffic accidents. They have a very clear priority for what bodily parameters they are looking to check for first, breathing and blood, and then maybe a twisted ankle but they will deal with that some hours later. Let us go for the important ones quickly while we have time. Q315 Mr Challen: I would just like to explore one of the features that came out of the previous evidence, which was that in Wales at least 30 per cent of the population seem to have heard of the expression "sustainable development". You have said in your evidence that to many, but not all, the term "sustainable development" has begun to take hold. Also, you have said in your memorandum that to some extent the phrase "has been diluted by numerous commercially driven reinterpretations". I wonder if you could just comment on these various features because it may be that the 30 per cent that the Welsh Consumer Council have heard about knowing the expression are only familiar with diluted interpretations of that. What is your view on that? Mr Allen: I have been with CAT for 16 years but it is its thirtieth anniversary this year, and if we look back to 30 years ago CAT was pointing one way and government policy was pointing in a very different way. If we look at what the predictions were from the Central Electricity Generating Board for energy back in the 1970s, they were expecting almost exponential growth. What we have seen is a lot of agencies coming round and moving much more towards the way we want to see them pointing. Where I think it has taken hold is in Government. When we see a White Paper coming out with a 60 per cent target stretching to 2050 for fossil fuel reductions, that is a big uplifting thing for a lot of people who recognise it is urgently important to see that reflected in Government. Similarly, within the DTI there are lots of very positive signs, particularly the enthusiasm for developing renewable energies, which simply was not there ten years ago. Also, in the Welsh Assembly Government with the legal obligations and what is reflected through the Assembly's supportive public bodies, such as CCW and the WDA, there is a lot of recognition of the core problems and the need to develop environmental goods and services as part of the economic development. Also, in scientific circles, the Royal Commission produced an excellent report, Energy and the Changing Climate, which is producing solutions that are pretty near the scale of solutions that we need to solve the problems, they are not tinkering at the edges. Similarly, the work done through the Hadley Centre and so forth is excellent work, it is bang on target for what we should be doing and it is probably leading the world. We are even seeing things like a change in the position of the Archbishop of Canterbury who last year came out and said that polluting the planet is a sin, which is something that was not there before. We are seeing it take hold in lots of areas but it is very easy for companies that do not look at the big picture to tinker around the edges and use it as a marketing tool because they know there are people out there who are committed to sustainability who are the consuming public and they will show a product preference for that, so if they can allure to it then the marketing people will be encouraging them to do that. Ms McGarry: That is a problem, that people will interpret sustainable development as developing, ie growing, consuming more things, producing more things, but tinkering around the edges. There is another problem of people who think they are doing something significant in terms of sustainable development by just recycling, for example, without looking at any of the other issues. A lot of very useful work has come out showing how, if we do not cut down on what we consume, the recycling does not even keep up with the impact of that. That is one of my worries about the people who knew the term but who are not interpreting that as a significant change in their behaviour. I would absolutely agree with Paul that there are lots of positive signs as well. Q316 Mr Challen: I get the impression that perhaps a lot of professional groups that have a relevant interest may be very familiar with a strong definition of sustainable development but your view might still be that the general public might be dancing, as it were, with this weakened thing. In that context, would it be the case that the slightest hint from those people in authority, whether it be a local authority or the Assembly or national UK Government, that perhaps it is not quite so important would have a major impact on public perception and it would be an excuse almost to withdraw from this philosophy? Ms McGarry: Absolutely, and I think unfortunately an awful lot of teachers do not have an adequate grasp of what it means either. For a lot of them they think recycling is going a long way or they are very confused about issues of climate change. Young people say to us that they are being taught inaccurate things in school and that what they are being taught in school is not joined-up. Q317 Mr Challen: Amongst professional groups which do you think are the most enlightened? I know you have just produced a video for planners at local authority level. Ms McGarry: I would not like to say because I think our knowledge is probably much too patchy to make a judgment on that. Mr Allen: We have a traditional, almost social collective memory on pollution because pollution has been going for 200 years since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Mostly that has been local scale pollution where, when we stop pumping effluent into the river, the river begins to improve and clear. We have a collective assumption that climate change is simply greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere. When it gets a bit uncomfortable we will simply stop doing it and the system will revert to where it started. However, those organisations that have an active and continuing development programme or have looked into it in any detail and read some of the reports that have come out of the Hadley Centre or other learned journals will realise that it is not like that; it is more like the behaviour of the human body. It regulates the system but if you push it beyond the point where the regulation is in control the regulation breaks down and there is a rapid jump to a very different system. Once that runaway process is set in train it is possible that it will be unstoppable. I think that is the sort of realisation that was brought to the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury and to several other leading people. Once they see that there is a sort of basic human fear or indignance, "We just cannot let this happen. Let's change", and people sharpen up what they are doing. It becomes much more focused. Ms McGarry: Where that happens is incredibly hit-and-miss. It is an individual who will be well-informed and knowledgeable, so you get certain teacher training departments who are very good because there is somebody who is quite clued up and knows where to find the right information and you will get whole other barren patches basically where people do not know. I do a lot of work with sixth form groups at the moment and a couple of the schools that I have been into, and this is in design and technology, the students have been really well-informed and it is quite clear that in most geography departments they have been well taught and they have understood about climate change. Among the others there is the odd student who understands things very well but there is a real lack of awareness and the teachers are not in touch with it. They do not know the places to look for the serious information. Q318 Mr Challen: Is this just happening in individual schools or is it regional or geographic? Do you work entirely with Welsh schools, for example? Ms McGarry: Mainly with Welsh schools at the moment but not entirely, no. I work with English schools as well. Q319 Mr Challen: Have you been able to trace any patterns? Ms McGarry: Some areas are a bit better than others but it does tend to depend on the individuals in the schools more than other things, and subject areas. Mr Allen: The reason that we particularly focused on producing continuing professional development materials for planners is that planners are in some ways at the cutting edge. They are having to make a decision between actual reduction of fossil fuel emissions and changes in the visual environment and in order to make an informed decision about the relative weightings of those two choices we felt it important that planners were aware of the current scientific research and the robust conclusions that are coming out of the models for climate change so that they can make an informed decision. Ms McGarry: It was only possible to do that because the Assembly wanted to do it, so a lot of opportunities were provided by the Assembly's commitment to sustainable energy. Q320 Chairman: Just before we leave that, could I follow up in terms of what you are doing there whether or not Estyn, who we had before us previously, are aware of what you are doing there and if it is part of their ten-year plan to address this as far as teachers are concerned? Ms McGarry: I do not think they are aware of what we are doing. I find the problem in Wales is in terms of communication. There is nobody like the CEE which is a meeting point for people, communication and networking for bodies within Wales, so there is not an easy mechanism for Estyn to know what we are doing short of us approaching them. Q321 Chairman: They mentioned a panel, did they not, when they were here? Would there be any scope for you to be on that panel? Ms McGarry: I do not even know who makes the decisions about who goes on that panel. Q322 Chairman: In a way what this has highlighted is that at the institutional level where these mechanisms and procedures are drawn up who should be involved and consulted about what and where somehow or other you need to be slotted into that procedure. Ms McGarry: I think so, but what I feel is that a panel can only have a certain number of people on it and there are all sorts of organisations in Wales that are doing all sorts of things. There is not this network where they can communicate and they cannot all be on that panel, so there is, I feel, a lack of a communication system. Q323 Chairman: You do not feel part of something bigger? Ms McGarry: No. We have some really good contacts directly. In fact, what was the Sustainable Development Unit has now gone to the Strategic Policy Unit, so that is quite significant, but the Strategic Policy Unit in Wales is stuffed full of people who are extremely good on sustainable development and we have had some very good contacts with them and with other bodies, but that is a direct contact we had there. Q324 Mr Challen: In your written evidence you say "the almost continual stream of accepted science reaching the headlines has significantly reinforced the message that business as usual can continue and that 'contraction and convergence' is a clear global priority". Is it really a continual stream of accepted science, or indeed other news stories? Is it really percolating downwards or is it, if you like, a broadsheet concern? Is it perhaps running the risk of creating a sort of environmental fatigue amongst people who get sick of all the bad news and just want to turn away from it without getting to the stage of looking at the solutions like C&C? Mr Allen: Our approach has always been to be solutions-driven. We deal with the problems by presenting the solutions, which is so much more uplifting for those who have to and will have to continually hear it. The problems are not going to decrease and go away; they are going to remain. What I would be particularly interested in is the robust science that is coming out of the coupled carbon modules that the Hadley Centre are developing. Now they are getting other researchers with other different types of computer models to model the same events and more or less the results are coming out the same, that El Niño will become an annual phenomenon in a few decades' time which will result in a massive die-back of the Amazon basin, releasing huge amounts of stored carbon back into the atmosphere which will dwarf the amount that we give up in a year. Scientifically it went back to the fact that they lost half the carbon. They looked at how much carbon we give off every year as a matter of public record and the rise in concentration in the atmosphere was only about half what we are giving off, so that led to the search for the carbon sinks which pointed to the fact that it is not the carbon that we give off that is the problem; it is the changes we make in the huge natural carbon cycle. We are tinkering with a very big thing. Ms McGarry: I am driven to frustration frequently by things on Radio 4 which just take the superficial view and do not use the scientists from the Hadley Centre; they pick on somebody who wants to say, "Oh, climate change is not really happening", or, "That is not really serious", and so it is not getting beyond that. Even the broadsheets at times are using that popular attitude which is not using the really serious science. I think it is improving a bit but it is not good enough. Q325 Mr Challen: Perhaps another approach which I think is probably one which would go down well with the public, maybe for the wrong reasons, is that if you have this continual stream of accepted and very profound science which makes it all look so inevitable, people will say, "There are not solutions but we can adapt", and the Copenhagen Consensus is all about that kind of approach, just having to live with it. Are there ways that you can convey to people that there are better means of tackling it which are realistically possible? Ms McGarry: One example is that very recently there has been a programme on Welsh language television where the back-up was provided by CAT and it was working with a group of families looking at reducing their impact and their carbon footprint particularly. Some of them did incredibly well. They reduced their impact to less than a quarter of what it had been in the first place. I do not know if you saw it. I do not know how popular that would be on S4C but it seemed to be a really good programme. It was a positive thing; it was working with these people. It was quite a good feeling from them about their experience of doing it as well. We need more support for that sort of positive approach. I find it very difficult sometimes, talking to 17-year olds and getting them to see a whole variety of things that include issues of global poverty, trading issues and climate change, and you do not want to leave them sitting there looking incredibly depressed and hopeless about it, and that positive action is extremely important. Unfortunately, we do have to accept that one of the things we need to convey to people is that adaptation is now the only way forward because we cannot keep things as they are. Q326 Mr Challen: Do you see any evidence which shows that C&C is now becoming an idea whose time has come, not least amongst higher policy makers? Ms McGarry: Contraction and conversion? Q327 Mr Challen: Yes. Ms McGarry: Yes. It seems to be being talked about a lot more. Mr Allen: The useful thing is that it brings in the international equity perspective but relates that to your actual carbon footprint and your carbon quota that you will have as a UK person and linking the two things is a very powerful tool because if we can begin to address the international equity we can begin to work for a more peaceful world. Ms McGarry: There is a huge difficulty there. One of the things that depressed me in looking at both of the documents down in Wales is that they both talk about the needs of business. With the English document that was the only driver of curriculum, if you like. The rest of it was all about structure. With the Wales document there definitely was reference to sustainable development. Business is interested in producing more things and selling more things and that is an enormous problem when we are looking at contraction. It is looking at the needs of business and nowhere do the English documents say anything about the needs of people or the needs of the planet. Obviously, if you are going to provide for the needs of people you have to produce things, but there are all sorts of ways in which we could do that with a much lower impact. It just felt like we have got to have some other drivers in there for what is going to be in the curriculum. Q328 Mr Challen: Looking very briefly at the DfES Action Plan, your response to a question about whether it is a success or failure was just one line, "It seems very regrettable that the ESD Panel is still not in place to advise the Department". I am just wondering if you could tell us a bit about what has been the impact of the absence of the ESD Panel. Ms McGarry: I do not have enough direct evidence to say. I just felt that the reports that it produced were very clear, very down-to-earth, particularly the last one which I thought was admirably clear, in plain language and very useful advice. That did not seem to be reflected in the DfES Action Plan that came out just after it closed. Q329 Mr Challen: Are you at all encouraged by what you heard earlier this afternoon from our Defra witnesses? Ms McGarry: No. Q330 Mr Challen: Finally from me in regard to the DfES Action Plan, do you think it has started a process of change and what sort of achievements, if the answer if yes, would you point to in order to demonstrate that progress? Ms McGarry: I do not feel that my knowledge of what is going on in education in English schools is good enough to be able to say. One thing that I have been involved in is producing some materials on citizenship and sustainability for design and technology education for QCA. That sort of thing is happening. Those sorts of materials are being produced. Q331 Mr Thomas: We have covered some of the areas already that I was going to ask about. You have had a very good stab in your evidence at writing the Sustainable Development Strategy so we will take that as read. From what Mr Challen has asked you and from the evidence you heard earlier from Defra, how do you perceive the fact that education on sustainable development is with one department and the overall lead for sustainable development is with another department? How is that impacting on the Sustainable Development Strategy for the UK? Ms McGarry: I have been very unimpressed by what has come of the DfES and I have been very surprised by that. Frankly, there must be some people in that department who understand what sustainable development is about, I would have thought, but it does not seem to be there. It just does not seem to work. There does not appear to be communication between departments or co-operation between departments. I do not know. That is very much an outsider's view. Q332 Mr Thomas: But you do some work in England as well as in Wales? Ms McGarry: Yes, we do. We work with schools. Q333 Mr Thomas: Is that only down to a statutory duty placed on the National Assembly, for example, or do you perceive it as something more institutional? Ms McGarry: There are lots of things happening in Wales but I do not see how much of it is coming out of the Education Department in Wales. I do not really know, partly because of this lack of very much communication. One of the things I looked at yesterday was the document from the Higher Education Council for Wales which I thought was extremely good, a really clear, thorough policy for higher education institutions. I thought that was great, so if that reflects what is going to happen in other areas that is really good. Q334 Mr Thomas: Not necessarily though. Ms McGarry: The 14-19 document does not reflect the same approach. Q335 Mr Thomas: That is what I was going to ask you because you mentioned earlier your disappointment in the 14-19 document in England and I think in Wales as well to a slightly lesser extent Ms McGarry: Yes. Q336 Mr Thomas: Tomlinson, for example, is the basis presumably for the next White Paper for education in England. Do you have any thinking as to why education for sustainable development has been so poorly served within these documents? Ms McGarry: I do not know. If you read something like that and you read something like the higher education one in Wales, the difference is staggering. Q337 Mr Thomas: Does it reflect what you said earlier about the evidence from the DfES? You were disappointed with their past performance and perhaps that has been reflected in what has been taken by Tomlinson out of that? Ms McGarry: Presumably. I just do not know. Q338 Mr Thomas: How much do you work within England as compared to Wales? Ms McGarry: There is one project we are involved in for the Sustainable Design Award, which is working with design and technology at A-level in schools. It is a joint project between us and the Intermediate Technology Development Group and so they are running it in England and we are running it in Wales. We are doing a lot of work together, so I am doing some work for that, so doing teacher training in England, but we get visited by a very large number of schools from England so that is our main other area of contact. Q339 Mr Thomas: Are they coming as part of education for sustainable development? Ms McGarry: I am not sure how many of them would stick that label on what they are doing. Q340 Mr Thomas: What do they think they are doing in CAT? Ms McGarry: They will come to deliver a bit of the curriculum. Some primary schools are coming on their week's residential course down in that area of the world and we are part of what they do. In the past we used to get certainly a few schools every summer who were just there for a day out and it was a nightmare. They just ran around, but it is almost always focused now. The teachers do want something out of it to do with energy issues or something relating to what we call sustainable development. Q341 Mr Thomas: Would you say that that has improved over the last few years? Ms McGarry: It has. Q342 Mr Thomas: The intelligent use of CAT by groups in the curriculum? Ms McGarry: Yes, I think that is true, but the numbers have gone down. Q343 Mr Thomas: Has that been driven by changes in the curriculum or changes in teachers, if you like, or the profession? Ms McGarry: I think it is changes in the curriculum. The tightness of the national curriculum created a problem in that respect, taking energy out of the primary school curriculum at one point, and then money, and to some extent health and safety brought worries. Schools cannot afford to come. They cannot afford the coaches, they cannot afford the supply cover. Q344 Mr Thomas: Clearly not every school child in Wales or England can visit CAT, so what about education within schools themselves? You also deliver, I believe, training for teachers. Can you give us an idea how that works? How much of a take-up do you have there? What effects can you have by training teachers as opposed to directly dealing with schoolchildren? Ms McGarry: I think the training of teachers has to be the most important thing but it is incredibly difficult to get hold of teachers for more than a short period of time. We have quite useful contact with Careers Wales at least to have some funding for training, so they brought groups of teachers to us, so we will get a school day's length at a time with groups of teachers. Through the Sustainable Design Award I have found that because it is almost impossible for the teachers to get out of school what I am now doing is going into the schools delivering workshops for the students but that is training the teachers at the same time because they are sitting in on the same sessions. That is one of the only ways we get to them, and you have to offer training at weekends, things like that. I do not really think it is right for teachers, who work incredibly hard, to have to give up their weekends. It is not very good to have exhausted teachers spending their weekends working and then going back to teach another week in school but it is one of the only ways to get time with the teachers to do things. Q345 Mr Thomas: If you take the average teacher, thinking about recycling as making a great contribution, how long does it take he or she to come up to what you would think is an acceptable level of knowledge of sustainable development? How long would you like to get them there? One day, two days, three days? Ms McGarry: At least two days. We did run courses for teachers. We gave up on it some years ago because they just were not coming. Then we tried doing it again in more recent years. I have accepted now that most of the people who are going to come with us on courses are people who work with teachers rather than teachers themselves, so people in other organisations. Q346 Chairman: To what extent do you work with universities where you have got teacher training? Given that the emphasis has been on leadership throughout the whole of our session this afternoon I am just wondering whether or not those are for those taking up sport or similar teacher training groups where there is quite a lot of leadership involved and that might be applied across the board and how that might be a package to, if you like, bring in people at the formative stage of teacher training. Ms McGarry: We would think that was vitally important but we are getting fewer teacher training institutes now coming to visit us because they have got less time with the students and the students are poorer. They have not got the money to pay for the visit and the students have not got the money to pay for it either and they have not got the time. Bangor University science team are an exception. Every year they bring their science students and they are the only teacher training institute that comes every year now. Again, at Bangor there is this project that has come through development education and that is opening up some doors as well. Q347 Mr Thomas: There has recently been a Channel 4 programme called The End of the World As We Know It which has featured CAT. Did you see that because I was interested, if you had, if you could give us some of your comments? Mr Allen: We have had a lot of feedback from people who have seen it and I was there when they filmed it, but it was broadcast at 2.30 in the morning on S4C, so I have not yet seen it. One of the most important things that came out of it for us was the reinforcement of our general concern that people know that we have to make various different lifestyle changes to move towards sustainability but you can put numbers against that. You can look at what is the reduction in your fossil fuel footprint through choosing to fly on holiday locally and so forth, and people do not have any real perception of how big a change in your carbon footprint the relevant different lifestyle choices make. We have developed a tool called the Carbon Gym which is using the metaphor of a gymnasium where you go for your carbon health check. We did this to Marcel Theroux and I think it was a bit of a revelation for him to realise where the big savings can be made. We do not spend lots of time worrying about lifestyle choices that are tinkering round the edges. Q348 Chairman: Notwithstanding that programme, which I have not seen, do you see much sign of the significant cultural change that we need to have in terms of people changing culture, changing leadership to get that culture change? Mr Allen: I feel that once we get a real understanding of the science behind the problems that we are facing that will change people and will change the culture. Look at another culture change that we had to make: health and safety at work. We have very strict legislation about what continuing professional development level of health and safety awareness different people in different parts of society have to have. We need a similar rigorous continuing professional development programme for people at all levels who are implementing sustainability to make sure that they all are up to speed and current in their understanding of the problem that they are dealing with through their workplace. Once that begins to happen, and I can see it rippling around some areas already, then the culture begins to change, but we also have to recognise that culture changes in different ways in different parts of society. One important thing that we have always been very keen to do at CAT is supporting the community champions, people embedded in companies, local authorities or communities, who want to change already because they have it in their heart to do so. If you enable those people to make the changes that they want to, perhaps inform them of the relevant merits of the different changes, they will go back and do that in their societies and that will affect their neighbours, that will affect their work colleagues, and it is helping to change, helping to move in the direction that things are going that I think can be most cost effective for the limited amount of resources that we can find. Ms McGarry: Perhaps I can say one thing which is not an answer to that question. I have had a lot of contact recently with really impressive young people. What we need to be doing much more is listening to young people. We need to be asking them how they want to be educated, because they do have very strong opinions on it and very interesting opinions, and they are capable of taking on this complexity of issues and seeing the big picture of things in a way that people often do not expect. All sorts of people get consulted about curriculums and very rarely do people consult 14-year olds and 15-year olds and 17-year olds. Chairman: On that note I think we will have to draw it to a close. Thank you so much for making the effort to come here. I hope that when our report comes out it will be something which will assist all of us involved in this whole agenda. |